So we are home, and I am sad. Weather on SLU last week was abso-freakin-lutely perfect - sunny and in the 80s all week, just a little rain on Saturday afternoon.
The evidence of last year's hurricane Thomas is very much in evidence on the road from Hewannora to the north end of the island - there are place where the road is just 1 lane because there's nothing under the pavement, where there's pavement left at all. In a couple other locations the road hasn't been repaved so there's a patch of gravel/dirt.
You can see along the road where there were landslides, and where there was flooding.

I wrote the rest of this report for chowhounds.com - so it's a little food-centric.

We decided to eat at some new places this visit, although we did cook some and did eat on resort some - those taxi fares add up! We stay at Windjammer Landing, and I will not report on the food because it was not up to the usual standard that we expect. We did have some good mahi - once grilled with salsa, once creole style. They will be implementing new menus over the next few months, we hear, and that will be very welcome - at least to us. The general manager said the emphasis will be on local-sourced and local cuisine, as well as healthier menu items. I can't wait to see what they do!

Monday we went to Rodney Bay Marina to check out Bobo Bergstrom's new restaurant Starfish. It's right on the waterfront, with a lovely covered patio seating area. The menu was nicely varied, but not too huge, DH and I each had the thai style noodles, his with chicken, mine with dorado. It was a perfect lunch with a cold piton. just enough veggies, just enough spice and lovely big chunks of fish. (check out http://www.eurobbean.com/ for info about Chef Bobo's restaurants) After lunch, we did a little grocery shopping at the SuperJ in the Rodney Bay Mall. We checked out the new grocery store in the brand new Bay Walk Mall, and although (or because) they had a good selection of American brands, the prices were much higher. Since we'd like to buy Saint Lucian coffee and produce when we're on the island, we went across the street.

Tuesday we ate in, nothing exciting there except for the super-fresh Saint Lucian eggs for breakfast and that wonderful bread we buy at the resort mini mart.

Wednesday night we went back to Rodney Bay to Big Chef, which had been recommended to us by someone at the resort. I had the pumpkin, beef, callalou soup as an app, which was quite delicious. DH had the beef carpaccio, which he completely enjoyed. DH's NY strip and my Filet were perfectly cooked and delicious - we didn't order any of their sauces, just dipped in the au jus they provided. awesome. We each had a side of their garlic mashed potatos, which were perfect - just lumpy enough! Dessert was a wonderful coffee creme caramel, made by the owner, who stopped by our table to chat. Nothing very Saint Lucian about that meal, but it was wonderful!

Thursday and Friday, more eating on the resort or in our villa. Saturday lunch I had the chicken roti for lunch at the resort bar - one of my favorite items on the menu. yum!

Saturday we thought we made a reservation for Red Snapper, which we knew almost nothing about. Turns out, we still don't... they were closed. So we wandered about Rodney Bay for a while, and ended up at Fire Grill, another of Bobo Bergstrom's restaurants. Chef Bobo's cream of pumpkin soup is my ultimate absolute most favorite to die for soup, and it happens to be on the Fire Grill menu. Dh had the corn and chicken chowder, which was also tasty. For mains, he ordered the 12 oz beef tenderloin and I had the red snapper. His tenderloin was one of the best, most succulent, pieces of beef I've ever tasted. My red snapper paled a little in comparison - even though it was really good! We both had peas and rice as a side, and were subsequently too full for any of their very tempting desserts.